Operation Parenthood
by Missie2
Summary: The G-boys have been given their toughest mission yet: they need to take care of a helpless infant. What makes it worse is that Quatre's the infant... 3x4 shounen-ai.
1. Default Chapter

I will get back to work on my unfinished fics, but this little idea struck me a few times. To date I've seen two fics that are along the same lines, and I know it's ridiculous, but it's my fic and I can do what I want. I also chalk this up to the fact that I'm feeling strangely broody. I'm only eighteen, for Christ's sake!

By all rights, babies should be our rulers. Grown men and women obey without question their every whim, protect them with their lives and spend hours without sleep just to ensure their comfort. So maybe it is fortunate that babies don't possess the intelligence or motor skills to take advantage of their status.

Taking care of a baby is one of the hardest tests any human being can go through. The world is a surprisingly dangerous place, and we rarely realize just how dangerous. Sally Po also knew this, unfortunately for the Gundam pilots.

Said pilots were getting rather lazy. They aced all tests and preparations for future missions, nothing was left that they didn't excel at. So the insane doctors had given Sally the mission of finding a difficult mission for them to complete. And the horrendous idea came into her head. Give the pilots a helpless child to take care of in the modern world. A true test of ingenuity, skill and teamwork. The only problem was where they would get the kid. And that's where the pills came in.

Ah, Dr. J's pet project. Nobody knew exactly why they would be considered useful, but being a mad scientist Dr. J didn't really care. One pill would slow down the aging process, and a combination of pills would gradually cause the subject/victim to grow spontaneously to different ages after two weeks of consumption. Sally figured out the combination to first turn the subject into a newborn baby, then to have it grow to a few months, a year, two years, and then three years. Now all that remained was the subject, and it was agreed that it should remain within the group.

Heero? No, Sally figured he'd be one of those babies that sat in a wet diaper for an hour before making anyone aware of it. Duo? A hyperactive baby, probably. The mission was cruel but she didn't want to be downright mean! Trowa? Same problem as Heero. Wufei? Crotchety babies are only cute for a minute or two. So, by process of elimination, Sally concluded that Quatre would be perfect. She figured he'd be a nice, easy-going baby, and it helped that the others were already protective of him. And he'd take the pills with fewer questions than the others.

So, having decided on her target, Sally drew up the mission schematics, and planned her escape route for when the others figured out what she had done.

Quatre went to bed early that night, after taking all the pills Sally had given him. She claimed that his last medical inspection had been an awful one. And it must really have been bad. Quatre couldn't even remember it. Even so, the medicine was making things worse. In fact, he had felt fine before he took it. Now the walls were melting and his legs felt weak and his head strangely empty. He settled down to go to sleep, and he did fall asleep almost immediately.

Trowa followed his lover up to bed shortly, but found that his lover wasn't in bed. His pajamas were in bed, but the blonde pilot wasn't. Trowa moved closer to the bed, and discovered a small lump under the covers. And in pulling back the blanket, he discovered their mission.

Quatre was now a very small baby, fast asleep and curled up in the shirt of his pajamas. On cue, the baby opened his big blue eyes and focused them on Trowa. Or tried to focus them on Trowa. All he saw of Trowa through his underdeveloped eyes was a hazy reddish-brown blur and a pinkish-white oval thingy. Trowa leaned over and touched the surprisingly abundant blonde fuzz on the baby's head.

" Q-Quatre?"

Quatre kicked out his leg in response. Lying beside the child was a folder marked " Operation Parenthood." 

Gulping, Trowa opened the folder, skimmed the contents, then picked up the baby and ran downstairs.

After hours of complaining, death threats and spin-off missions to find and kill Sally, the pilots had to sit down and actually plan for the mission. Sally had given them all the details in the folder.

" Quatre will be a newborn for the first two weeks. At this stage a child is at its most vulnerable. Ensure that he is fed with the formula I left in your cupboard at regular intervals, keep him clean and warm, but not too warm. When holding him, support his head and lay his body at an easy angle (there was a diagram to accompany this!) and don't shake, rock or disturb him roughly in any way."

There was a long list of things to be made sure of, and it seemed strange to the pilots that such a tiny human being could entail so much work. After reading through the list, they looked uncomfortably at their diminished comrade. Quatre had slept quietly in Trowa's arms the whole time.

" So what do we do with him now?"

" Well, nothing, he's asleep."

" I think Trowa should take care of him."

" It's a team effort, baka! We all have to take responsibility."

" But he's Trowa's kid!"

" He's not my kid, he's my lover!"

" Oh, God, you are sick, man!"

" Shut up! You know what I mean."

" Well, we need to get him some clothes."

" And a cot."

" And some toys."

" And a pushchair."

" And one of those walky-talky thingys."

" A baby monitor."

" Whatever."

" And some bottles."

" And a pacifier."

" Should we make a list?"

An hour later, the pilots had split up in a motherhood accessories store to find the items they needed. Duo was getting toys, being little more than a big kid himself, Heero went to get the pushchair and cot, Wufei went for bottles and pacifiers, and Trowa went to get clothes, with Quatre wrapped in a blanket with him.

Baby clothes are a novelty that everyone enjoys. Adults coo at the miniature versions of the top fashions that they can dress their little tot in, regardless of the fact that the baby couldn't care less what he's wearing. In no time at all, Trowa's cart was full of footsie pajamas with cartoon characters embroidered on them, fleece jackets, brand-name imitation trainers, socks, t-shirts, dungarees, bobble hats, gloves, etc. When he got all the items to the checkout, he was alarmed to find out just how much he'd spent. Baby clothes, for all their cuteness, are ridiculously expensive. Thankfully, he had his lover's credit card.

At home, Trowa took great delight in dressing his miniscule lover in one of his favorites out of the outfits he'd bought. It was a soft white sleeper in fleece material and a pink sweater of the same fabric with the word "Angel" embroidered across it. Raised eyebrows all around for the other three pilots, who were sitting on the floor trying to figure out how to put the cot together.

" Hey, Trowa, you do realize that that's a girl's outfit, don'tcha?"

Trowa muttered something to the effect of "I had no idea" and busied himself trying to keep the baby comfortable. He didn't have much work to do so far, Quatre was content to suck his pacifier and stare at them. As with all babies, Quatre possessed the Cadaver stare, a remarkable ability to stare with strange interest at nothing for hours on end, a sure sign that they are content. And of course a content baby is a cute baby. Quatre made a very cute baby, with his unnaturally large eyes, fuzzy blonde hair and tiny body. The pilots had to surpress the urge to say "AWWWWWWWWW!"

After three hours, a lot of swearing, an unhealthy amount of alcohol and much throwing of projectiles at the mangled heap in the middle of the kitchen, the cot was finished. Just in time, Quatre was starting to yawn. After they lugged the awkward cradle up the stares and into Trowa and Quatre's bedroom, Trowa laid out what he hoped was enough blankets, a thin pillow because he was warned against tipping the baby's head at an angle, and put Quatre to bed.

While Quatre dropped off, Trowa picked up the book that Sally had left for them in case they needed more information. He skimmed the pages until he found the section on putting the infant down for the night. He ran a checklist on what needed to be done. 

Infant is clean and dry? Check. Infant is fed and winded? Check. It had taken ages to get the wind up but Check. Temperature is sufficiently heated? Check. Infant is in correct position? Check. 

And so on. After the checklist was run through, Trowa's attention was drawn to a little yellow box as a footnote at the end of the page, marked "Cot Death Syndrome." Curious, he read it.

When Heero went into the room the next morning to check on their mission, Trowa was still sitting by the cot, his eyes firmly fixed on the baby and his face as white as a sheet.


	2. Chapter 2

A few people wondered in their reviews if Quatre had died which would explain Trowa's white face. Worry not people, I rarely kill off a character, and I never kill off a character in a humor fic. Cot death Syndrome is a very scary possibility, even when the baby seems fine the slightest change could cause Cot Death. I know that Trowa's reaction was also my reaction when I was babysitting a newborn for the first time. He's just a little worried. Here's part two.

Thankfully, Cot Death did not claim the pilot's mission the first night, but it took a lot of coffee to get Trowa fully awake and coherent for the day. After feeding, cleaning and changing the baby, which didn't go as smoothly as they'd hoped (the first bottle had too much powder in it, Duo accidentally let the baby slip under the water for a second, and two diapers were shredded before they actually got one on!) Trowa decided to take Quatre to the doctor for a quick check-up. He was still a wreck of nerves after reading the Cot Death article. Consulting the book, it said that the baby needed to be well wrapped up. All hands on deck for this operation. After a clean sleep and sweater, they debated on how to dress him.

" He needs a coat."

" Got one!"

" That's a jacket, baka!"

" What's the difference?"

" It won't keep him warm enough."

" Fine, here's a coat."

" Now he needs gloves."

" Those are too big!"

" It'll keep his hands warm!"

" They'll fall off!"

" They're made for babies his age! I can't help it if he's premature."

" How old is he, anyway?"

"Just shut up and get the gloves on!"

" He keeps squirming. Stay still dammit!"

' He can't understand you!"

" Well, they're on."

" Now he needs a scarf."

" He barely has a neck."

" He needs one anyway."

" And a hat."

" God, Trowa, what an awful hat. What were you thinking?"

" It's not that bad."

" It's a girl's hat! Take note, blue for boys, pink for girls!"

" I didn't like the blue hats. They didn't look warm."

" Yeah right. Hey, this kid can make anything look cute."

" What about bootees?"

" Got some!"

" And some blankets."

" What do we need blankets for? He's bundled up enough as it is!"

" Just in case there's a strong wind."

" Fine, here's two."

" Make it three."

By the time they were finished the only part distinguishable, as a baby was the two big blue eyes staring out at them and a slowly bobbing pink pacifier. Finding himself cocooned in the blankets, he starting kicking them into disarray, and a further half-hour was wasted trying to fix the covers. Finally, Trowa set the bassinet into the pushchair and set out for the bus stop.

Waiting at the bus stop with a pushchair is incredibly awkward. You need to stay at the handles to make sure that it doesn't roll off into the incoming traffic, and yet you also need to keep an eye on the baby. The result is that you push your way through the people surrounding you to check on the baby at least three times before the bus actually gets there, and nobody has scruples about shoving past you and the pushchair to get on the bus when it does get there.

Also, nobody is willing to help you struggle to fold up the pushchair and keep a firm hold on the bassinet at the same time. Trowa spent a good ten minutes pulling and pushing and apologizing to the disgruntled, unsympathetic bus driver before he got the pushchair into the luggage space and found a seat. Nobody was willing to move over a little to accommodate him, so the ride to the doctor's was spent uncomfortably perched on the very edge of a seat with the bassinet swaying dangerously on his knees. Mercifully, Quatre slept the whole way and didn't make a fuss. A lot of antagonizing stares are pointed at someone with a screaming child on a bus.

The doctor's surgery was, of course, full of old biddies with minor complaints who grumbled when Trowa went in ahead of them. The tests were quick and rather unsympathetic, actually, the doctor seemed unconcerned and bored by Trowa's concern for his charge, and poor Trowa left the surgery more worried than when he had first gone in. Deciding not to repeat the bus fiasco, Trowa wisely hailed a cab.

The cab driver actually helped him with the pushchair this time, throwing it into the trunk. But Trowa was horrified when the driver nearly threw in the bassinet as well.

" There's a baby in there!"

" Really? Oh, I see it now. I think you got a little over-zealous with the blankets, mate. Who's a pretty little girl, then, sweetheart?"

" He's a boy."

" You must be the first parent I've met who dresses a boy in pink, mate."

" I'm eccentric, and he isn't complaining."

The cab was a lot smoother than the bus, but that wasn't saying much. About ten miles outside of their destination, they ran into some roadworks, and the pneumatic drills caused Quatre to wake up. And for the first time since they got the mission, the baby cried. Not only cried, but bawled.

A screaming baby is actually quite frightening. They sound as if they are being tortured, and Quatre in particular had one of those "Why are you doing this to me?" wails. His tiny body was shaking, and for lack of anything else to do to punctuate his screams he was kicking and waving his arms about, and his little face turned an alarming shade of red.

" Hey, mate, do you want me to drive you to the hospital? It's only a few miles and I won't charge you extra."

" No, that's okay. I just need to find his bottle."

With a little bit of milk and the return of his pacifier, as well as the driver playing classical music over the radio, Quatre stopped crying. The aftermath of a tantrum can be worse than the tantrum itself, because the baby looks so pathetically grateful to you for stopping the pain, the tears that still run down its face might make you believe that they are tears of gratitude.

They eventually reached the safehouse, and Trowa was sure to tip the driver well for his help. For there are thousands of other people that just wouldn't care.

Two weeks passed, and the pilots were getting better at parenting. Sure, the 3 o clock feedings were draining, and on occasion they were a little overprotective, but there is deceptively little work in taking care of a newborn. The modern world just makes it seem harder than it really is.

One morning, Trowa woke up and instinctively looked over at the crib. Then he bolted out of the bed and over to the cot so quick he might have left a trail of smoke.

Newborn Quatre, wasn't there any more, instead an older baby sat upright staring at him. Amazingly, his sleeper still fit, because he wasn't a big baby, but his eyes held a certain measure of interest that wasn't there previously. Seeing Trowa stare goggle-eyed back at him, the baby gave him a charming smile and crawled to the end of the cot to be picked up.

Now fully conscious, Trowa remembered what was in the folder, and groaned. The next stage of their mission had begun.


End file.
